


Schae, daughter of man and Fae

by orphan_account



Series: Bucky's a dad, Schae's his daughter [1]
Category: AU - Fandom, Alternate Universe - Fandom, Another soldier, Bucky's a Dad, Captain America (Movies), children - Fandom, the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Children, Assassination, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky's a dad - Freeform, Bucky's a father, Captain America - Freeform, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fairy, Fiction is real, Gen, Kids AU, The Winter Soldier - Freeform, Violence, brainwahing, daughter - Freeform, fae, father - Freeform, killers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 01:56:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3792289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trouble was that Schae wasn't human. Bucky knew it as surely as he knew when Steve was about to have an asthma attack. Even her full name: Schaeffer Baramiasinya Barnes was a testament to how not human she was. She was fae. She was an Atomyan Fae at that, the most ancient kind. The ones that breathed carbon and exhaled oxygen and fed on lava and elements that could never be food for a human. Yet, this was his daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The trouble was that Schae wasn't human. Bucky knew it as surely as he knew when Steve was about to have an asthma attack. Even her full name: Schaeffer Baramiasinya Barnes was a testament to how not human she was. She was fae. She was an Atomyan Fae at that, the most ancient kind. The ones that breathed carbon and exhaled oxygen and fed on lava and elements that could never be food for a human. Yet, this was his daughter, given life through the dying lungs and breath of a fae and made from just a wisp of his hair, not that her fae visage would show that. When she was around others of her kind, she would let it show. When she was letting it out she had eyes that looked like the ink they used in newspapers, hair the same shade but more like silk, skin that looked like volcanic ash, and wings that looked like obsidian spun with air. It was beautiful in its own way, but the outside world never understand. Fae were seen as a danger, a sideshow attraction rather than ancient and sentient beings who had the wisdom of the ages. His daughter, Schae, didn’t display that much though. She was just like any other human child at about the age of ten, save the fact that he’d only been so gratified to have her given to him by her people about five years ago. Biologically and mentally, she was five when she was given her life. It was a strange idea, one that made James Buchanan Barnes very uncomfortable to think about. Still, when her looked at her, he saw only a shining light of life, a miracle. It seemed he was drawn to those with frightening regularity.  
He knew Schae’s behavior was unusual. She was astute, quiet, and smart was an understatement concerning her. She would turn herself to stone and step in front of someone about to be hit by a car, then run off before anyone could ever realize it was the man with the dog tags’ child, skipping without concern alongside, who’d saved them. She’d saved Steve’s life too, nigh on three times now. She somehow knew where that damned medicine was and knew to get it before Steve’s attack even started. Steve himself thought she was just Bucky’s niece from some distant relative somewhere, and was delighted whenever Schae called him ‘Uncle Steve’. The truth would probably give him a heart attack. Steve’s mother had been scared to death of the fae as the Irish usually were, but Steve had maintained a little of that fear of the people and had seen Bucky as someone with immense gall to be able to just step into a fae cave, calm as could be, and save them all. It was a story Steve saw as incredible and a true testament to Bucky’s bravery, or so he’d said.  
In any case, Schae was an enigma to the humans, and they were just as much of an enigma to her. Bucky recalled a conversation he’d had with her when she was the mere and tender age of eight. “Why are humans so strange? You have such vehement hatred for what you don’t understand. It’s scary.” He’d stared more for the correct use of the word ‘vehement’ by his eight year old, rather than for the question. “I don’t know sweetie. We’re just built to fear what could hurt us. It’s an overactive imagination that some people take way too far.” “Why?” “Because they’re more interested in being right and having something to hate rather than knowing the truth.” “Why?” “I don’t know, and honestly Schae, I hope I never understand. That mentality is what ends up with people like the fae having to hide the way they do.” Schae’d nodded and looked as serious as an eight year old was capable of looking, before latching onto him with the tightest hug imaginable. Being that she wasn’t human, Bucky was positive she’d at least bruised his ribs a bit, if not given him a greenstick fracture. He hadn’t gotten it checked though; there was no money to. Especially because at the time, he was paying a Persephonyan Fae for keeping watch. Now the kind soul did it for free, but then, everyone had to be a little less kind and giving. It was the depression after all.  
Now, he stood, shipping out and already missing his little Schae. Steve too, but her wide, impish smile was what was at the forefront of his mind. He was all Schae had really. He was the only genetic relative she had that would be willing to care for her. He knew Steve would visit her and would do as much as he could to make Schae’s loneliness better. The creed of “to the end of the line” between Bucky and Steve was very similar to the creed between himself and Schae, his gift of light in a dark, cruel world: “stay together and remember your light”. It was something he’d heard a fae say way back when, but it’d seemed perfect for the relationship between him and his daughter. Schae had taught him about as much as he’d taught her. She’d also taught him how to prevent himself from going into cardiac arrest when people did unpredictable and random things. Schae was as bright as a star, and about as predictable. He knew she’d get up to all kinds of shenanigans before he got to see her again, and she’d tell him all about them, her eyes glittering that evil, majestic light that showed her mischievous nature through and through. If you see her again. An evil, cold voice whispered in the back of his mind. He shrugged it off. He knew, deep in his gut, it was right, but he had to believe he’d see his sunshine again. Schae’d helped him so much whenever Steve was sick or in danger from something, and she didn’t even know it. He had to see her one more time, and he would. He made that his promise. If Steve had his way, Bucky wouldn’t need to go home to see him, but there was no way Schae would find her way to where the closest people in her life were. Especially with the fact that she was fae, born of the BREATH OF LIFE and a child. He’d have to find his way home if he wanted to see Schae. So, that became his promise: he would survive and pull through so that he could go home and see his sunshine, Schae.  
Later though, being tortured at the Red Skull and HYDRA’s mercy, it was very hard to keep going. all he wanted in the world was to give up. Hang it all, even Schae and Steve. But seeing their faces, forlorn, and alone, Schae with no parent, no father, Steve with no brother, no one who understood, it kept him pushing to make it just one more day. It might’ve been prideful to assume that they would miss him that much, but it was all he had, and he would cling onto it with all the strength he possessed. He let them run their tests and put him through hell. He let them torture him and destroy the rest of his health. He let them do whatever they want, just so he could keep pushing, keep being alive for everyone back home. He’d been as strong as steel, he was told later. He had been beyond unbreakable, he’d been a hero. All Bucky saw was that he’d done what had to be done to just get through the next day and the day after, so long and so forth, until help could come.  
When Steve came busting in, it was the shock of a lifetime. He’d heard Captain America had been scrawny and the the media darling was coming here, but he thought the Cap was just for show. When he was his friend, his oldest and best friend, no longer tiny and weak, but massive and a super soldier, he almost forgot how to not have a heart attack on the spot. It was the needling of years of training from the dangerously inclined Schae, that knocked him out of his shock and allowed him to give the cool remark of “You were shorter, last I saw you.” When he was freed of his bonds and cage. He’d fought hard and shot a lot of HYDRA agents. It made his life better to watch them drop and watch Steve be the hero Bucky always knew he could be. Yes, that was a day for the history books. In fact, it became one some time later. However, Bucky couldn’t help but feel a bit useless, standing now a few inches shorter than the man he used to protect. It was such a small feeling, that it only registered in his mind when they had that long and silent walk back to the base Bucky’d been taken from.  
Then, after several very successful exploits with the Howling Commandos came the call he’d been dreading since the day Schae had been discovered by a scientist for the very first time. It came from Pericimalinaverisa, the Persephonyan fae whom he’d charged with the care and protection of his daughter when she'd snuck into Europe on Steve's plane (That was another heart attck Bucky'd narrowly avoided.). “I’m so sorry Mr. Barnes, but Schaeffer has disappeared. She was taken from within our walls without a trace. She didn’t run off; there were signs of a struggle, but as of now, Schaffer Baramiasinya Barnes is gone.” Bucky hadn’t even had time to mourn or tell Steve. He had a job, and he was going to do it dammit. If he couldn’t protect Schae, he would protect Steve, even if Steve didn’t think he needed protecting.  
That all led to now, with Bucky lying on the frozen ground, after his fall off of the train. His every bone was shattered, and his voice was gone from screaming himself hoarse for Steve or Schae or anyone to find him and help. He hallucinated that the Russian who dragged him through the snow was Steve, or one of Schae’s creators. Of course it wasn’t, and his regret and agony only intensified when he woke up and saw Schae sitting small and scared and heard a remark in Russian that chilled him to his very core: “Отец Генерал Зимняя.” General Winter’s father. The only thing that made it worse was Schae crying at them “Позвони мне Schae , я Schae , не Ариэль!” Call me Schae, I’m Schae, not Arielle! It was the worst thing he’d ever had to hear from his daughter’s lips. Thus began the rise and take over of the Winter Soldier, and his fae companion: General Winter.


	2. The Winter Soldier and General Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The JFK assassination and forbidden thoughts.

General Winter, Генерал Зимняя. That was a name that was characterized by the harsh cold and stark white that covered Russia, not by someone who was fae, a daughter, a gentle soul up to then. Renamed Arielle from her people given name, that replaced name was there only for the purpose of her being hidden under mountains of names when she killed a man or woman who had or worked a harem. It was also there for the sake of her being invisible. She was taller now, allowed to grow and mature a bit to be appealing and to be able to wield her natural beauty and sexuality as a terrifying and efficient weapon. She was used to do what the Winter Soldier could not: appear innocent and appealing in the way only a woman could. Her being fae only made her that much better of a weapon. She had powers no one but her people could wield and a natural allurance and mystery that made pursuing her something that was almost unavoidable. She was a terrifying weapon, and when paired alongside the Winter Soldier, the two fought so well and with such elegance, that their total slaughter looked more like an elegant dance than a total bloodbath. That was only when they were together though. When they were alone, the slaughter looked like the bloodbath it was. The dance they did was done out of old feelings, a rhythm, a sensation in their core. It was genetics, and though those had been manipulated, the graceful gene had remained in place.  
General Winter and the Winter Soldier began to earn names and reputations for themselves. It was the Winter Soldier who did first. He would come from nowhere, a shadow, a phantom. Before the danger was seen, he would become all too real, and death and destruction were sure to follow. His killings became legend among those who engineered killers such as him. His sheer brutality and ignoring of pain made him unstoppable. It seemed to many that he was the flag-bearer of a new age. The unfortunate part was that his banner was dipped in blood. General Winter became the model for all female assassins who were genetically manipulated after her era. She was smooth, sexy, beautiful, and all over to die for in terms of physicality. She was strong and capable, her look and clothing changing with the times as the pair shifted through directors and time. She earned her name from the large amount of bodies that piled up behind a mysterious and beautiful woman who would appear from nowhere and right after she disappeared into the shadows she came from, a body would appear, bloated, destroyed, and decaying. She left a path of destruction in her wake. It was considered suspicious, but no one ever could remember her face well enough to give a description. She would just disappear back into the shadows and leave no trace of herself  
The world pieced the two myths together after the pair fought side by side for the first time since they’d completed the program the Russians had laid down for them. Their appearance at a skirmish on the Berlin Wall had been devastating, and several excellent spies from MI6 had been killed in the melee they had caused. It had been a trap, and one that was written into the guides of every would-be assassin or killer everywhere. They’d drawn in their prey with the bait of chaos and destruction, then killed them and ripped them apart. It was even whispered that they had done such a job of tearing up the evidence that there had been no bodies left to bury. The people who knew of them in Russia and feared them called them ужасы, horrors for what they left in their wake. The Estonians that knew of their presence called them lihtne surma simple death or easy to death depending on who you asked. Those names were given in hushed whispers, but the name the Jews gave them was one whispered by many until another took that name for her own: מלאכי מוות: angels of death. All those titles, as well as the names those who were in the official circle called them were whispered in fear and in shadow. They were also whispered at funerals. It was reported that sometimes a beautiful girl who couldn’t be older than nineteen or twenty would visit places where known allies of the burgeoning SHIELD were gathered and she would just stay there. When she left, one or more of the occupants would be turned to stone. They never saw her face, but somehow, they all said she was the most beautiful girl they’d ever seen.   
The Winter Soldier continued to gather infamy, the mere whisper of his many dubious titles enough to garner a shiver of absolute fear from those who knew what he was capable of. What they knew was nothing compared to how dangerous he actually was. Those who’d seen the Winter Soldier at his best and his peak never lived to tell the tale. Those who were unlucky enough to get cornered by both of those now soulless killing machines died in a way that eliminated any chance of them getting buried or even found at all. They could be messy, and city streets ran red with the blood they spilled. What the Winter Soldier did not know was that he fought alongside someone who was tied even closer to him than his mind could compute at the time. The Winter Soldier had planted its roots and killed Bucky’s. There were a few withering branches and roots left, but with the constant toxicity and poisoning, the Winter Soldier’s tree grew stronger, while Bucky drifted into being how he was seen by the world in his own body: a shadow, a phantom. Sometimes, the asset called the Winter Soldier would see something or someone, and for that brief instant, things would come flooding back, Bucky’s tree would get a bit stringer. He was always quelled and subdued before he could get any more room to put his roots down. The disturbing part in the assets’ mind was that these resurgences happened quite often around General Winter, especially when she was dressed to be called Arielle that night or day. It concerned him, because should this become a recurring problem, he may no longer be functional, and with disfunction came the chair, with disfunction came the dim breaths of being someone else, of being something else. He learned to not look the female asset in the eye. The push by the one who wanted him not to be the asset became quite powerful and potent at the glance of General Winter’s eye. Dangerous, опасно, his handlers’ voices whispered in the back of his mind. Things that caused resurgence of the dimness were dangerous.   
General Winter herself never paid this much mind. The one she’d grown in place of was more like the irritation that causes the callous. She’d hardened around her, and inside her own mind, the one whose name used to be Schae festered in the dark, looking for any way to destroy the mental calluce the monstrosity had grown over her. She too grew stronger when she saw the Winter Soldier from a position where she had to look up to see his eyes. It harkened to the dimness inside General Winter, Arielle. She, however, felt no threat. She accomplished her missions, but as things inside a body do, there was some amount of infection from Schae. General Winter was much more likely to disobey than the Winter Soldier, and there was a much lower chance of severe consequences for her. She was one of a kind. The Winter Soldier was stronger than most humans in will and determination to survive, but he was, at the end of the day, only a bit more than human. That was after all the work those in power had done on him. HYDRA loved how well she worked, even with how rebellious she could be. She was beautiful and could hold captive anyone she chose, regardless of acclaimed sexuality, as all true fae can, should they wish to. She was fearsome in her destruction and killing. Life, death, they made no difference to Ариэль, to Arielle. It was the dimness in the back of her mind that protested at the taking of lives. General Winter was unperturbed. The only disturbance that got her attention was the surge of strength whenever she had to look up to see the Winter Soldier. When that happened, the dimness would leave images that confused her, and though she wouldn’t admit it, they scared her as well.   
Генеральный Зима и Зимний солдат. General Winter and Winter Soldier. That was how they addressed the pair together. It was always said in a gruff, demanding tone, the weight of a mission in its words. Both knew that torture and punishment awaited failure, and that was a line that not even General WInter was willing to cross. When they went on missions together, they were often left alone to get reaquainted with how they moved together. There were always multiple mind wipes between every meeting, but the people who owned them let them remember each other. After all, they had to fight side by side and know who was a rival. It wouldn’t be good to put them in opposite ends, as their owners were prone to doing, and letting them fight towards each other, without them knowing who each other were and what each other looked like. They would destroy each other when they mistook each other for an enemy. No, the Winter Soldier could always find General Winter and know it was her, and General Winter could always find the Winter Soldier and know it was him. That was the only thing they were not allowed to destroy, the scientists who worked with the dreaded chair: The assassins memories of battles where they helped one another and fought alongside each other. They would always be allowed to remember each other to at least a marginal degree.  
That brought them to the present: November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. They were going to kill the president. He was a threat to HYDRA of the highest order. It was a situation of the highest priority and so, only the best would be put up to resolving the issue before it became more of a threat than it already was. General Winter was posed as Arielle again, and the Winter Soldier waited in his perch to take the life their mission demanded. A man had already been lined up to take the fall. He was a loose cannon, dangerous in his own right and had plans to kill John F. Kennedy beforehand. HYDRA just wanted to ensure it was done, and done well. The man wasn't aware of the fact that the woman he bumped into had completely disrupted his gun. He would be convinced, alongside everyone else, that he had made the shot. Arielle was standing to make sure she got their second target: a snitch on HYDRA whose trip had been organized by the ones who planned to kill him that very day. They would kill him that very day. Well, the more accurate way to put it would be that General Winter would claim his life that very day. He would become another face filled with horror as he turned to stone from the outside in, last to go being the brain. It was her preferred way to kill as sniping was the Winter Soldier’s alongside guns. She was stood right next to him, and was exuding waves of her confidence, beauty, and sexual energy towards him. The Winter Soldier watched him squirm in the scope. It was being recorded, and he knew what trick General Winter was performing. As he watched, he knew that man’s legs were turning to stone and his arms would soon follow.   
The motorcade approached and the Winter Soldier took aim on his target and waited for the perfect time to strike. He knew where the other would-be assassin was, and he knew where he’d have to shoot from to make everyone involved think it was the other one. He saw his moment and shot at the precise time he knew would get him the shot he wanted. He heard another gun go off, but he was secure in the knowledge of two things. The first was that General Winter had already stopped the bullet The second was that his silencer had made it so that no one could’ve heard the shot from that far away, regardless of species. He walked down the stairs at a brisk pace and got in the truck that awaited him on another street, calm in all the chaos around him. It was all noise he was programmed to ignore. It was too easy to do so, and the asset settled back in wait for the female asset to come. The wait was a bit longer than what they;d been told to make it, but they all knew that the truck wouldn’t be stopped. Thewy were free. General Winter peered at the streets as they rushed through, the city not yet locked down. It was a scene she too was programmed to ignore. It was just occupation for her eyes at this point. Neither the male nor the female asset spoke a word. They didn’t speak often, and only spoke to get missions, give reports, send status updates, and things of that nature. Talking for the sake of speech was something they never did. They were not programmed to speak, only to follow orders and get the job done.  
“Успех, отличная.” Success, excellent. Those were the words used to tell the real leader of HYDRA how well the mission had gone. Locals had fallen for the trap and neither asset was injured. All the leader would say would be хорошо, good. They were not a person of many words. There was an unspoken rule that they enforced without mercy, however. People other than him were to use Russian and only Russian around the assets. They had cost a lot of money, and their programming was not understood as well as it could be. Russian was the mother tongue of the programming that made the assets the killers they were. It strengthened their hold in the minds of the the two as well as a wipe in some cases. Neither assassin moved or appeared distressed, and they weren’t. Their minds were blank of everything bust assessing and observing. Their programming was habit now, rather than an enforced behavior. They did it without notice, yet paid attention to little else. The thoughts that accompanied these behaviors were well worn ruts, as the wipes only really extended to memories, not to behaviors that were encouraged. They didn't remember having worn those ruts in their minds, but they were there, and they were functional, nothing else mattered. They gave their statuses: functional, and they maintained their silence. The driver and the guards held a conversation in Russian, knowing what would happen if they spoke anything else around the packages and word got to the leader.   
The Winter Soldier was not at all very thoughtful. He observed, analyzed, looked for threats and that was the extent of his allowance for thinking when he was not in a HYDRA complex. He could think other things, and he did, but never spoke. No, that was forbidden; that was not good. General Winter was silent beside him, looking out her own window. She too limited her own thoughts, but less so than the male asset. She wasn’t at as much of a risk as he was. The leader knew that getting rid of her would be a bad play, however, she knew that pushing a bit too much would have consequences, some she could foresee, others she couldn’t. Either way, it wasn’t worth the risk. Talking wasn’t worth the risk for what would be such little return. She’d had thoughts of independance, thoughts of leaving. She knew it was the dimness, that whisper of Schae and her fae creators to rebel. Schae was still present and sometimes palpable in this assets mind, and her ideas of wild and wreckless fleeing and escape had snagged on the asset. General Winter found that forbidden word tantalizing: freedom. The repercussions were only with it if the male asset came along. Alone, she would be vulnerable, at too much risk. The worry was convincing him. That worry was something she would need another help from the Winter Soldier’s solemn past to quell.   
The Winter Soldier saw a look of far away and out of touch thinking on General Winter’s face, and he knew her ideas were not what the leader would encourage. It seemed no one else knew that glint in her eyes, but some weary instinct in the back of that dimness told him it was опасность, danger. That was the only piece of the dimness that the male asset listened to. It knew опасность when it saw it. He knew that General Winter was thinking something that could only be forbidden. It could only be a threat to their owners, their handlers. That instinct wasn’t enough for him to strike her down. The punishment was much too fearsome, and he didn’t want to. That was dangerous too, wanting or not wanting. The assets did neither of those, and yet, time and again, they did anyway. The dimness in the backs of their minds would offer things so tantalizing, so enticing, that the thoughts came unbidden, and to the programming, unwelcome.  
When the drive was over, both assets were ushered to full bodied chairs where I.V.s were inserted and then they were left alone. They didn’t speak for some time, just gazed around the bare walls and sharp lights that the room had in its quarters. Both assets were aware of the camera that was pointed into the room. They knew that there were others, and that they were being watched. The urge to get out of sight was strong in both of them. Their masks were removed and their hands cleaned. When the caretakers and menders left they were alone again, this time with the smell of the stinging liquid that they used to clean around and under their nails. The scent was putrid and acrid and burned their sensitive noses. The burn of dull pain from the chemicals in their hands wasn’t noticed by either of them. This was another tool in their programming: pain was inconsequential unless it affected functionality. The burn would fade, and there was no reason to worry over it. That energy was better spent on analysis and gleaning what they could rom where they were. Both remained silent as dolls and still as statues aside from turning their heads to see things. To the new members of this division of HYDRA, their behavior was more than a little unsettling, and this was cause for amusement among the older members. The assets themselves couldn’t give less of a поиметь (fuck) either way. The new ones were just more faces in a never ending stream of strangers. General Winter and the Winter soldier were getting prepped to go back into cryo where they would remain until one or the other or both of them were needed again.


	3. General Winter's a Cold Hearted Bitch, but Schae's Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> General Winter gets stuck on her own and the Winter Soldier gets poisoned.

The Winter Soldier was quite busy. He’d been out of cryo for almost too long to go back in without using the chair again, but they only gave him a tiny amount of time to recover his glucose and restore his weapons before they would send him out again. He hadn’t inquired after General Winter, as asking questions was forbidden, but he’d heard whispers of her being put in extended cryo as a punishment for one of her bigger infractions. It was a common occurrence and it didn’t affect his functionality. Now, however, they didn’t want to put him in the chair. It was a hassle and it took a while to get him to function properly and without bugs after putting him in the chair. So, now he could hear the faint voices, discussing if they should take General Winter out of cryo and let her do the constant jobs until the Winter Soldier had been in long enough to back down from the rogue level. They wouldn’t, but it was a discussion to be had anyway. The Winter Soldier didn’t care either way. It was of no importance to him, all that mattered was the mission and what he had to do to maintain function. He was more active in observing the current caretaker than he was in finding out about the female asset. He didn’t recognize this new care taker. She was small, her bones frail, and she was little to no threat at all. She was steady handed as she stitched his wounds and made the sutures. She smelled of fear though, reeked of it in fact. It was a scent that the Winter Soldier had been exposed to so many times since the last visit to the chair that it was more of a concern to him when it wasn’t present.  
The IV seemed to be dumping fire in his veins as he sat and let it drip. He didn’t know what was in it, only that it was almost the same mixture as the stuff that pumped through his metal arm and into the blood vessels up there. This wasn’t the same mixture, and his instinct of knowing danger that was an innate and hugely important part of the asset was piqued and prodding the back of his mind that something wasn’t right with this mixture. The care taker was unaware of his very sudden and unusual personal fluidity. The Winter Soldier, asset being, didn’t think about his own personal safety or comfort beyond maintaining his function to its’ highest degree. This kind of fluidity earned him a chair visit and a cryo wipe. His attention and all his senses were focused on the IV and whatever it was that was dripping into his arm. He stayed still, the asset’s instincts taking over; the instinct to keep as still as possible and then some, to look for danger and target it. All of those instincts pointed him towards the frail care taker who was binding up the wound she’d just put over twenty stitches into. He would’ve dismissed it, but her scent of fear and an underlying anger that caretakers never had made him pause and stay watchful, nervous. She was the only thing he was focused on now. He wouldn’t cry out or ask for help, the asset did not ever ask for help, instead, he watched her.  
She looked up at him, a bit of malice in her gaze and her eyes hardened at him when contact was made. He made no move to show he cared or recognized her emotion, for the simple fact that emotion was not a factor for him. He just watched and waited. She would make the first move, he waited. This threat left him at a disadvantage, especially with the IV. He had to wait. “Do you speak English?” He cocked his head in understanding, giving the smallest movement needed, coiling for the strike that would come from this frail body. “Do you know what’s in that IV?” He narrowed his eyes at her and she quirked her lips. “It’s a toxin diluted in a saline solution. It will burn through you at a rate that will feel like fire is consuming you from the inside out. Want to know why that poison is in your veins?” He didn’t respond at all, instead, running through the list the asset had of all the possible poisons this could be and their antidotes. “You killed my family for your precious HYDRA. My entire village, my entire life, gone with nothing more than a fire and scorched earth to show that there was ever anything there. Your people were cleaning up after you, but I knew who it was, you bastard. HYDRA stole my bratr, then my sestry, and then you stole my zivot.” Her brother, her sisters, and her life, all this HYDRA had taken. He felt nothing, but in the back, where humanity made its insistent struggle, there was a twinge of empathy, as if these things had been taken from him. The caretaker stood, head high. “I take my leave. I don’t care if you’re a mindless drone, or even if you’re a brainwashed Americky like the rumors say. You took all I had left, so you will-” She was cut off as all of her atoms separated from each other, turning into all of their separate, unique elements in one, swift stroke. The only other Atomyan fae in HYDRA’s employ stood over him and she pulled the toxins out of his blood, letting them drop to the floor in their liquid form. She looked over at him, walked up, and backhanded him across the face, letting her nails slice his cheek. He didn’t make a face or any movement. “You should’ve killed her yourself, you miserable creature.” Her eyes blazed, and she stalked over to the arguing men. She pushed hard at them, yelling that he was worthless in this state of exhaustion. She thundered that the General, despite her disobedience, would be thousands of times more capable than Winter in this state.  
The results were swift, and for the Winter Soldier and General Winter alike, brutal. The Winter Soldier was wiped, prepped, and cryoed at a dizzying, and damaging pace. General Winter was defrosted, flooded with micronutrients and glucose, and the hyper-strength liquid delivery system shoved into her arms so fast that they destroyed the blood vessels and the cuts got infected with Necrotizing Fasciitis within two days. The General was more than pliant and easy to handle when she was revived, calm, thoughtless, and emotionless as a stone. It was disturbing to all the new employees of the Winter unit, and they watched her with sickened and macabre fascination. She wasn’t concerned, and they parted around her like the Red Sea around Moses. She was told the date (July 23, 1973), the country (Scotland), and the target (a CEO who hadn’t complied with HYDRA). She ignored the burning and tearing feelings that spread over her arms and got ready. A tickle of a long forgotten feeling washed down her spine. There was a sense of just wrong in the air, but she went about what was ordered of her with little to no concern of it. It was not her place to judge if a mission was good or bad, safe or dangerous, too complex or too simple. She was just there to be the gun that HYDRA would fire at every enemy they needed gone. It was not her place or something she could even think about. It was beyond her, especially after a fresh session with the chair. It was all she could do to function within the parameters of her programming. They sent her out with what could barely qualify as a once over and she moved towards the building, helmet over her head, skirt swishing around her mid- thighs, boots slamming on the pavement.  
She let her fae visage show, skin turning a dark, ashen gray as she pushed forward in the gathering night. People parted, letting her through, almost without knowing why, seeing only a very tall woman with a Tron Rinzler style mask over her head whose lights were blue. The tech was scary enough to them. Edinburgh was quite active, unusual for the night, but then again, people in cities were always more active than one would think. Either way, General Winter was unconcerned. She had a job, and she would do it. The night was cool and the lights were bright, but she couldn’t see the stars. That was a disturbing turn of events for whoever the creature was in the back of the female asset’s mind was. It didn’t like that the stars were gone. Arielle couldn’t care less. Stars were of no consequence to her mission. The CEO would be in a non-human fetish club. Sexual deviant that he was, but it wasn’t all that unusual. The people that ran the business got the workers only if they volunteered, but anyone who wasn’t human would fit right in among the many in that place that weren’t. In that sense, sending General Winter in place of the Winter Soldier was advantageous. She would fit in much better than he would, and wouldn't be looked at as closely. There were always a lot of fae in Scotland. Fetish places like this were pools of how many desperate people there were in a given area. That said, it was always easy to hide in a crowd where people were concerned about the nethers than the brain.  
The door of the place came into sight and General Winter allowed her aura to bristle enough to intimidate the guard at the door. There was no sense in drawing unwanted attention just yet. Besides, she was going to be punished if she forced them to keep her out of the suspects. She’d never forced them to do that before, and it wasn’t a tradition that she wanted to instigate. The scent of debauchery met her nose as she walked into the place. There was public intimacy, drinks everywhere, performers in next to nothing or nothing at all, and people wandering around looking for the next conquest they could have. General Winter made a hard rule in her mind. If one touched her, they would end up with their abdominal cavities split open, and two of their ribs missing. She would use their ribs to kill their friends too. She stalked forward, her mask earning nothing more than the odd glance. Her target had a thing for Elves, and Elves had a very specific atomic pattern, the scent of which really couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. So, she went to the stage that reeked of Elvin debauchery and there he was. He was an old man, a large man, but not unpleasant looking. He was nowhere near pleasant looking at all, but he was far better than some of the people in here. She sat near enough for him to be in her sphere of influence and ordered a drink. She was HYDRA’s weapon that was used when they wanted to be subtle and quiet. The Winter Soldier, while good at fast, brutal, and tortuous killings that made examples out of those who did not comply and endangered the world, he could not take apart a man, molecule of an element by molecule of an element. When the General was done, there would be piles of pure carbon materials, freshly released oxygen and hydrogen atoms that would combine to make water, phosphoric materials, potassium, magnesium, all of that stuff that made a human. The reactions would be stable and sustainable, so they would hold, even after she left. She only turned people to stone when she was told to make an example of them. De-atomizing someone was a lot quieter and a lot less painstaking. Rearranging and changing molecules all-together was irritating for the fact that the reactions and changes had to be stable. General Winter favored proton weaponizing and de-atomizing for the simple fact that both those things were much easier.  
The man’s companions didn’t even notice his rapid transformation. He went from a solid, live man to a pile of elements and recombining compounds within five minutes. General Winter had been told that the procedure was painful, but that was none of her concern either. She moved tables again, searching for the secondary target she was told to look for. This woman had managed to take down several HYDRA operations within SHIELD. She had to be stopped, at least, that’s what the handlers said. General Winter knew her face as soon as she saw it. It was a familiar face that triggered a slew of feelings from the one in the back of her mind, who’d been silent up to then. Dariapenicesariviya. A Persephonyan fae who had cared for the body before it became the female asset’s. This was unexpected, and unwelcome, and General Winter was much more eager to get this job done than before. She didn’t want to receive the memories from the body. She needed to be impartial, above. To be flawed so that she could not kill would be her death. Or, it would be another cryo session. Either one was a threat in the asset’s mind. She wouldn’t let it happen. Dariapenicesariviya would perish, and General Winter would do it.She sat near the woman, keeping her eyes and face averted, ensuring that by the time this target realized, it would already be too late.  
The de-atomizing took longer than for a regular person. This target was stronger than most. General Winter was unconcerned. It got done, but a bit more effort required. The female asset did not speak, did not move, hardly breathed. All her energy and half of her focus was devoted to tearing this target apart by her atoms. The other part of General Winter’s focus was zeroed on watching for all potential threats and looking for all the escape routes. There weren’t many, but there were enough for her to be able to escape without being seen. That was a valid concern. Fae always had allies that were ruthless after one of their own died. If General Winter was seen, HYDRA would be exposed, and the female asset would’ve over-stepped even her bounds. It didn’t come to that, however. The target dissolved after some extensive pushing on General Winter’s part. The General stayed for a bit to ensure the function was successful, then left through one of the many escape routes she’d planned when she had arrived.  
It was raining now. General Winter felt the rivulets of water running down her back, and fuzzy memories of a child dancing in the rain with a small, frail man came to the fore front from that dim back part of her mind. She shook it out of her head and continued walking, ignoring the water along the way. Those two were not the only targets. There was a third on the order list. It was a tall order, a mutant of some kind. Supposedly, this mutant was quite good with metal. General Winter asserted her cold superiority in the way an asset was programmed to do. Assets are strong. Assets do not fail. Assets are right when they do as they are told. The target was someone close to this mutant, and she was only to kill this mutant if he insisted on keeping the child who was her mission alive. She knew he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t sense her at all. Bio-materials were the materials the weapons lining both her arms were made out of. He would be incapable of harming her at all. The child was a different story. Child of a mutant and Kronomyan fae was a big title. This child would be strong. General Winter would be stronger.  
The apartment came into sight and General Winter scoped the window. An apartment with a window like that was a huge mistake that only a rookie could make. Any potential issue about her opponent being a little too smart was suddenly not a problem to the HYDRA agents tailing her. She knew full well they were there, and gave a show accordingly. This was a job that required much less elbow grease than the first.  
With that in mind, she spread her wings and with one or two swoops that might well have caused a windstorm somewhere, she was level with the window. The atoms unglued themselves and let her through with such ease that she suspected they have been melting beforehand. The room was silent, the foot of a child-sized bed right next to the window. The night-time shadow was as bright as day to her, and the small child was asleep, wrapped in a peace that General Winter had not been capable of remembering for some time. She was small, a tiny girl that, with a cursory glance, the asset would've said she was from one of the islands. Barbados maybe. She’d have been cute if General Winter could’ve thought like that at the time. As it was, all the female asset could see was that she was small, protected very badly, and defenseless. If she’d have been a normal person, she would’ve felt at least some guilt at killing the little girl, but the dimness had been silenced for the night and wasn’t able to say much. General Winter sat by the young girl, and she immediately sensed massive waves of energy coming off the frail looking body in what the dimness would’ve described as droves. General Winter didn’t balk, she barely reacted. Instead, she drew a massive sum of protons from the air around them and let them forma blast that was soundless, sharp, and that there was no armor or defense against, short of controlling the protons yourself. She severed the girl’s head, and let the blood coat her hands. She felt no remorse, and thought that this was almost too easy a job.  
In a car, the other Atomyan fae spoke to the leader of HYDRA while she watched the proceedings with a keen eye. “все чисто” All clear. “хороший актив” Asset good. She was pleased to give the report. She wanted to eliminate the need for the male asset. They would’ve never gone for it, but that was her goal. The female asset's report just made her smile wider. “Готово. Никаких осложнений.” Done. No complications. “извлекать” Extract. This would be her victory. The fae would rise in HYDRA. Of this, she would make certain.


	4. Mine Secret, Thine Downfall: We Shall All Bow

It would be a long while before either soldier was needed again, but that didn’t mean total inactivity. No, both were taken out and played with, the foreign materials in their bodies played with. The WInter Soldier’s prosthetic was given touch up and change after touch up and change. General Winter’s bio-mechanical inserts were changed to detect illness and target it while the General herself was given repeated treatments for flare ups of Necrotizing Fasciitis. The doctors who’d made the error were terminated, but the director was less than pleased at the near fatality of one of the two assets. He ensured that no doctor would ever rush in such a way. It wasn’t for their wellbeing, but more for the fact that it would’ve been very expensive and time consuming to replace an asset. While that was a subject, no one would be quite as conditioned as General Winter. After all, she was eleven when they had taken her. She’d been given nine years worth of growing time and over forty of service to HYDRA. One could not have simply conditioned another soldier. It would’ve taken time and money the director did not feel like wasting.  
The assets themselves were wiped and tested, frozen and rejuvenated, brainwashed and retrained to the point where neither was much more than a robot with a basis in biology. They existed solly for HYDRA and it’s purposes. Nothing else was even a factor, not even their own deaths. Both assets were treated as test dummies for the rest of that decade. It was this decade, however, that a secret began to grow in all of the fae who worked for HYDRA. Whispers spread about an Atomyan who had big plans for HYDRA and her people in it. These whispers carried to the assets, but they weren’t concerned. It didn’t matter who ordered HYDRA. All that mattered was what orders they were given and how well their duties were performed. With all of the playing the scientists did during that span of time, the assets were lucky to even be able to comprehend those sinful little whispers of a revolution. They didn’t understand what “Revolution” meant beyond those that their work instigated. All they knew was that people were burning with an unusual type of energy that made it difficult to understand exactly where the orders had come from. There was just orders, and compliance thereof. Revolution was for those who gave the orders, not for the assets to understand, much less think about or condone.  
That decade also gave birth to the commonizing of proton blasts as weapons for the female asset and for the male asset, a new level of lethality with The Weapon. Both were kept busy as the fae revolution festered like an infection in HYDRA. Both assets were in a continual loop of order, execution, adjustment, wipe, prep, cryo, rejuvenation, and repeat. Outside, the world changed. People were born, people died, and SHIELD became strong with HYDRA right beneath it. The Cold War raged with Mutually Assured Destruction a very real fear for everyone except those in HYDRA. That decade was a decade of change, but HYDRA was the one that allowed it.The assets would be sent out and another person would die, found with either an untraceable bullet or as a statue or a pile of elements, all separated from each other. Both the WInter Soldier and General Winter were nothing more than fairy tales. After all, untraceable bullets could come from many assassins and a good number of infamous Atomyans could de-atomize people without trouble, and almost all could turn normal people to statues. It was quelled as much as it could be by HYDRA, the idea that two super assassins existed who’d been active for well over three decades. They would laugh and say ‘preposterous’ or ‘inconceivable’, letting the assets sweep away all who continued to question. They hid in plain view, letting the world learn to give up its’ freedom, bit by bitter bit. Those who suspected were killed without a single thought or hesitation on the part of either asset. After all, they were alive to bring about whatever HYDRA wanted. This was how deep the brainwashing had worn into the psyche of both souls.   
A particularly hard and interesting blow came in the form of an archer who was, at the time, one of the best archers in the world, if not the absolute best. Both assets were needed to confiscate what the archer was guarding. It was a shipment of scientists, heading for a SHIELD base. HYDRA could not afford to let them reach it. It had just turned 1990 and this was a critical stage for HYDRA. The next year had to go to plan, and the speak of revolution had reached a fever pitch among the fae who had wormed their way into being the only species that controlled the assets, although how that slipped through HYDRA’s watchful eye has always been a mystery. They paid no attention to the whispers and the usual stares of newcomers. The WInter Soldier was checked, his arm tested for bugs, and his veins flooded with micronutrients and glucose alongside a tiny bit of epinephrine to wake him up and get him ready. General Winter was given much the same cocktail, only with the fae equivalent of epinephrine. The bio-materials were inserted, the skin sutured with stem cells placed over in a cream of nutrients to stimulate growth, and she was checked over for new physical flaws. Unlike the Winter Soldier, she had to be near perfect as was reachable on the physical plane. She was the stealth killer. Scars were not a matter of stealth. They were weaponized, briefed, and warned about the fight the archer would, without a doubt, put up. Fear was nowhere in sight for either asset, only the cold certainty that a job needed doing, and that they were being ordered to do it.  
They were dropped in a desert, cooling off in the night. It was cool and there was a breeze that blew sand none-too-gently into their faces. There was no response beyond a twitch of the eyes or a shake of the head. The Soldier guarded while the General scanned. It took less than ten seconds for her to discover the convoy SHIELD was using. She gave the Soldier a silent signal and the two moved forward, Not a single separation in their movements. They were fluid, silent and undulating across the desert sand in what could’ve been described as a mirage or a trick of the light. If that were the case, they were the most lethal shadows ever to roam the Earth outside of flesh-melting shadows.   
Inside one of the jeeps that made up the convoy, Clint Barton was scanning his surroundings. He’d been warned that this batch of eggheads in particular were at risk. Why? Clint neither knew, nor cared at the time. Later, he would care quite a bit, but then, it was just another job. All he knew about their jobs was that they were making some kind of detection technology, and beyond that, he hadn’t a clue. He didn’t care then either. After all, he was no traitor and he had a simple enough job: just watch the eggheads. It wasn’t too hard. That was before he saw what, to the untrained eye, would’ve looked like an undulating shadow person, or even a mirage or a traveler. Clint knew that it was no such thing. He’d been warned, and the attack was coming. He kept his face calm, but he notified the driver with some sign language. Of all the times he could thank god he knew ASL, that was a time. There were, it appeared, some benefits to being almost completely deaf. He peered at the movements, his mind noted that they could keep up with relative ease, a notation that raised interesting questions at SHIELD during the incident report. He reached for his bow and nocked an arrow, all the while his legs swayed with the motion of the vehicle and he watched the shadows like the hawk for which he was named.   
As the shadows drew ever closer, Clint, Hawkeye, recalled feeling an ever growing sense of dread. He knew, somehow, that they heralded death, danger, pain. He knew what they would bring. If he’d ever seen it before, those shadows were a knock of death, a sign that the worst was yet to come.   
Had he not seen those shadows, the brutal attack would’ve come without warning. As it was, a bullet exploding one of the egghead’s skulls was shock enough. Clint let an arrow fly, but watched in utter disbelief as the murky shadow formed a fae who couldn’t have developed much past twenty alongside a man who couldn’t be older than his mid-twenties. Clint knew that looks were always deceiving and as he nocked another arrow and signed at the civilians to get out fast as they could, he knew that he should be more focused on the disappearing act those two seemed to be able to pull off. As it was, he was the most interested in landing some kind of damaging hit, if only to ease his mind that he could defend himself. He had a name and a job to uphold, but self preservation was the more urgent of his reasons. He fired every type of arrow he had and only got a reaction when he used the most expensive and difficult type of arrow in his arsenal to manufacture. The one he only had ten of as well, of fucking course that would be the one. As he moved, all grace still, he fought, changing position at as rapid a pace as could be maintained. The attackers just kept coming, but he swore, they just weren’t right somehow. He would later say that their movements, their attacks, their interplay, they were just too perfect. There was not a single flaw in their attack. The people he was meant to protect were dropping like flies and he couldn’t stop it. When the last one was slain he knew he was in the worst danger possible. All the drivers and a majority of the other guards and passengers had been killed, and he was the one that’d caused the most damage and frustration for the pair.  
As they moved away, a shooting pain went through his whole body, and the girl was suddenly right in front of him. Her face was all he could see through the blinding pain. It was twisted and though there was good symmetry and good features, they were deformed and erased by her expression. “YOur blood will be my wine.” She growled out before she disappeared as she had appeared before: without warning. The pain disappeared with her, or at least the source had, and CLint collapsed in absolute agony. He was taken away by his agency and his story was filed away with the other ghost stories of the two. He was never asked about it again, but he never forgot it. Even when they were gone for good as a threat, he never forgot the night on the convoy.  
To be fair, the Assets weren’t ever permitted to forget how sloppy that night had been. They were punished and beaten and broken into bloody pulps then cleansed and wiped to what HYDRA considered a pristine shine. They were tortured, nails pulled out, skin cut open, vivisection-like treatments with no painkillers, more drugs than a bloodstream should have pumped into their veins. Their agony was their payment for such sloppy work. The only relief came in another mission. This one was also simple. The archer had arrows that had damaged the Assets. HYDRA didn’t like it when it’s property was damaged. So, the Soldier was to destroy the manufacturing plant and exterminate the employees within, and the General was to terminate the only man who knew how to make the weapons. THe archer himself was at a loss, and this man was the only one who knew all the secrets. Should they be sloppy or fail to do as ordered, they would be wiped until they remembered nothing, not even each other. Though that would hurt their work together, it would cause them more difficulty than HYDRA, so it was a fair threat. Difficulty wasn’t a factor to the Assets, but mutual termination was, so that’s how it was phrased. Both were stone cold by the time the orders had trickled down, so they didn’t react.  
The night was dark when they were deplored in Delhi, India. The plant was in the heart of the industrial part of the city, and the inventor in its outskirts. The Soldier was dropped first, although thrown would’ve been the more accurate term. He landed with all the usual grace and poise, but his eyes were colder and more unhinged and animalistic than ever. All he saw was a crosshairs at what he was to do. He moved with a certain grace and fluidity that all hunters and predators share. In his tread, it was shown in absolute certainty and the lack of any kind of worry. He felt nothing but the iron certainty and deliberate orders his masters had given him. He attacked the plant with at first a brutal but silent strike, slaughtering all who crossed his path while planting the explosives and acidic capsules as he’d been commanded. It was perfect, no error was had or could’ve been seen. He left the floors bloody, but there were no screams or calls of alarm, and as the plant blew up, he felt nothing. He just waited for his owners to come get him.  
The General intruded in a similar manner. She was thrown out of the aircraft and landed with similar grace and ease. Pain was of no consequence. She moved as smooth as silk and as silent as an owl. The man was old, but he was beyond paranoid. He had good security and a massive security task force that was the size of a small army to assist it. It lasted no more than five minutes against her. Within that amount of time, she was within his compound, undetected, and ready to do as she’d been told. No guard that met her stood a chance. She pulled their atoms apart with no resistance or hardship whatsoever. They made no noise and didn’t land a single strike on her. She progressed without trepidation, moving as the Soldier had with the mark of a predator.   
Half the guards the aging inventor employed were killed within twenty minutes of her landing. They still did not see her, though fear began to spread at the sight of little piles of strange substances around the compound. THe inventor would not be told, and that would be the fatal error. She found his quarters with almost no effort and strolled in as if she owned it, not the weakened, aging man in the chair she found herself in front of. He looked up at her with resignation in his eyes and his demeanor. He lived only five seconds past that look before he was eviscerated, his atoms separated and returned to their pure forms. The entirety of the guards were eliminated with similar ease and skill, and no evidence remained. Not that it could’ve been seen if it’s been left behind. She turned all the remaining biological components into random household items and even a few diamonds. The authorities that investigated after she was extracted all walked away several hundred thousand dollars richer and a little less capable of having an easy rest at night.  
The Assets were wiped, prepped, and put on ice once more, but the movers in HYDRA began to move forward with their plans. SHIELD was ready, The world was almost ready thanks to the work of the Assets. The pair would be needed again in the future, but not for a few years.   
While they rested in their forced sleep, the world devolved, but Clint Barton knew more than almost anyone else why the situation was devolving so fast. He’d seen the work of the two, who he now saw as automatons. He knew that motion and work like that came from practiced methodology and comfort with death and blood and terror. He watched for them and looked. He knew he was painting a target on himself, but almost no one got the drop on him, and those two had, even though he’d seen them. He needed to quantify it, to understand it. He needed to be ready. So he looked, and when the reports came from India, he detained them and looked through. The carnage was as he expected, and he knew now that they had access to his weaponry information. He also now knew that they had access to SHIELD. How much was unclear. From then on, he was careful to find remote sources for his arrows. Fury’s bitching and the damage on his wallet were nothing compared to the danger he knew those two posed to a major city in any country.  
HYDRA wasn’t ignorant to Clint’s newfound knowledge, but he wasn’t a threat. At least, they didn’t feel that way. They found his research puny at best. All he knew was that their Assets were dangerous, and that was no secret in the world of wholesale death. There were disadvantages to removing oneself from that situation, and HYDRA had no qualms about being immersed in it. Clint, had morals and strictures that fettered him, that tethered him. Those would be his undoing. HYDRA was primed to begin the project that would complete the dreams and work of all those who came before them. The Assets, sleeping in their frozen shells, would have a lot of work to do and a lot of blood to spill before all was said and done. When it was done however, the world would bow to the skull and all would see the greatness of HYDRA. The Assets would be police, enforcers, reserved for those who escaped the final plan. It was perfect, and they were ready to begin.


End file.
